Tales of Death and Life
by candyquakenbush
Summary: One-shots or Vignettes. Each story is a character and their story of survival or death in the zombie apocalypse.


Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to anything. Least of all the Walking Dead.

Summary: I randomly get inspiration for one-shots from anything. In this case, the Walking Dead is a great inspiration for me. In this particular story. I wanted to focus on a mother and her son. I don't know if I will continue with the same characters it's really up to you. Or the aunt and her farm. This particular piece is somewhat based on a theme that both the show have and the story, human frailty. I hope you enjoy, and feedback is much appreciated. I haven't done fanfiction in five years. Or any fiction for that matter.

I. Diana

It was a simple and sunny day in Westcott, Georgia. The sun was out and the breeze was picking up slightly. It would have been a great day to roam the parks and let her son play with his friends. She would have let him spend his energy in running and acting like a boy, since he was only eleven. She knew better though. She heard her son's voice and she turned to quickly shoot a one with her gun. She closed the door to her SUV fast and ran inside her house noticing Nathan by the window with his father's shotgun.

If anyone would have told Diana that she would be training her son to shoot at people she would have told you to go to Mars just over a week ago. But just before she saw them in the streets of Atlanta, she knew that something wasn't right. She heard it in the news, and saw images of towns being overrun by them. Her husband, whom was serving in the National Guard fighting against the plague, had asked her then to teach him to kill since he wasn't there to train him. And she knew then that it was the right guidance. Westcott, a surburban area of Atlanta, was spared most of the fight until hours before. With only a few walkers roaming the streets per day for now, but she knew that they were turning the neighbors and would soon overrun the area too. Some of the neighbors were leaving already, some were going back to Atlanta for the FEMA trucks, but something in her made her think that the city would be the worst place to fight them or to ever conside safe . Thosands of people with no expertisem and space to run, no sanitation, and such an easier death trap like New York had turned out to be.

"Nathan, get your stuff, and stay here near me," she said as she noticed his items weren't in the living area, "Dad will be here shortly." She saw him head up and get the items from the top of the stairs.

She looked around making a mental checklist, she took the food, the clothes for a two week stay for each, her heirloom necklace, and her family albums, three guns and all the cash they could get in a matter of minutes. Her son had some of his things, too including a couple of books to entertain him. She also got three gallons for gasoline. All of them full. They were about ready to leave, except for her husband. She quickly took her small bag with ammunition, and told him to get the same as she saw her husband's SUV, in much worse state.

He came out with his disheveled hair, and uniform. Walking to her as fast as he could, and he kissed her, before moving them quickly into the car. She walked to the driver's seat, but noticed her husband instructing her son to go inside next to her and she looked at him puzzled. She stared then for what could have been a second or an hour, but couldn't muster the words.

It was then, as she heard another car moving along a driveway that she spoke up " What about you Craig? Aren't you coming?" her fear evident in her eyes, and her son's too. She knew there would be a reason for him not to go, one that she loathed and feared. He simply shook his head, "I'm so so sorry Cassie," he responded then, lifting his shirt to reveal a small bite wound. "Now get the hell out of Atlanta, go to the farmlands, go to Mae, I called her a few minutes ago, she knows. She said she was safe. And shoot at what you see that looks like a walker, and don't stop, run. They aren't as slow as you think."

She nodded before kissing him again, watching him smile back before letting her unload a bullet into his brain. Her son cried then as quietly as possible as she rolled up her window and looked at her dead husband. She knew he rather die at her hands than turn into one of them, and though it was the saddest and most profound choice she could make, she knew that he was right. This was something they had spoken about only a day before when he phoned her.

They would open the windows enough to let air in and use up the least bit of gas as possible. No air, no music, just whispers, and observations at first, as they headed to the freeway. She got on one road to the other once she left the house, looking at the people packing their bags just like them. Their faces all poems of what they truly felt. No hope. This was the end to all, and it felt like the worst nightmare anyone could live in.

As they drove, she remembered the good times with her husband, their first date, their first time, their marriage, the birth of her son. It was the most important things in her life right now, her family. She remembered her sister too, and she began to weep softly. She passed by looted areas, and a few walkers feeding on a dog. She got on the express just as she saw a couple of them walking toward the car. Then the fights, and the times she wished she had not chosen this life. Her mistakes, and regrets, the fact that she almost lost her son in an accident. That she almost didn't marry Craig. She loved all of it, and now, when she felt it the sudden fear of an end to it, she realized just how great a life she had had. Memories flooded her brain as she went through the streets in a bit of traffic, but good enough to go above speed limit. The sun hitting on the roads as they went along.

Each time she would look at the cars near to her, she noticed the same uniform face of terror and utter panic, even when the individuals owning the faces had a gun or a rifle in their hands. Her own son was one of those individuals as he sat down and looked ahead, a tear streaming down his face. She took his hand then and smiled, "Everything will be alright dear, we will go to aunt Mae's it's just about twenty minutes away. Hang on."

While her son wouldn't respond, she noticed a gentle push on her skin and she noticed Nathan move to turn the radio on. Noise was was all your could hear in most stations except the ones that were public broadcasting stations. A female voice was speaking in each one, the same person in truth "Please do not let an infected bite you. The would would cause a fever that would break your arterial valves and kill you. In effect you will turn into a "walker". Please try to get to a safehaven. A FEMA truck is outside the Sconton High School In Beverly Road. Please be patient, and hold your own weapons. Again I repeat-" And so on and so forth. Ten minutes minutes of the same news over and over. A CDC announcement in the working, a few citizens calling in to inquire with a Scientist in the station which was now the CDC headquarters. On and on it went, and it caused her son to start shaking his right leg in anxiety until she shot it off and started to sing old tunes to calm him.

The cars started to slow down almost to a halt at the exit that they were trying to leave in. Exit 58. She started to look at the front to see how many there were and noticed a long line of cars. She took her seat belt off though, a strange feeling causing her to feel a bit nervous at seeing the cars almost at stand still. She took her gun then and looked at her son to make sure he had his on, which he did. She sighed and all but whispered, "If something happens Nathan, you can run down the forrest in a direct line for thirty minutes and you will get to aunt Mae's farm."

He quickly looked at her andnodded. "I don't think anything will happen mom. It is probably the traffic."

"I know dear, but just in case, this is too slow. It's a gridlock and I fear it might be walkers," She smiled at him and they waited a couple of minutes until she felt that they had completely stopped. Utter fear of what could have stopped the cars caused her to tell her son that if there was any noise he had to open his door and run to the forest. He nodded and opened the door just enough for him to escape if need be.

Then, suddenly a scream was heard from a car overhead and a window breaking. Everyone got out of their cars then. People held up the guns in the cars before them, and suddenly her son ran to the forest as she followed with rifles and a backpack behind him. It didn't take long though for her to spot a walker killing a passenger in the car ahead of them, and she shot him with her gun as he tore the girl's hand and began to eat it. Other walkers came for them and she ran with her son into the forest. Only to be followed by a couple of walkers which they soon killed off. She ran with her son through the forest then as fast she could, knowing the land from her childhood when her brother would run after her. Tommy, whom had passed away. She had her son in back of her protecting him from any walkers that she might have found along the way. Using three bullets in total from her gun, and one from her rifle.

She was almost by the clearing that signaled the two mile walk to her sister's farm which she inherited from grandpa George when she felt a walker grab onto her son to bite him, but she put her own arm so the walker would bite her instead. She felt the dull push of the teeth as they broke skin and flesh and though a bit of flesh was bitten off she whimpered as she shot him right on his head. Killing him and spreading his blood on her.

She looked at the walker second as she began to feel an intense pain in the area of the wound but quickly looked at her son as he observed her with teary eyes, and then sank down on her knees before him. Wanting to touch him for the last times. Fear taking hold of her, as her tears started to fall. She took her gun then and gave it to him, letting it fall on his hand as she kissed it.

"Nathan, if you walk that way," she said as she pointed with her other arm to the clearing, "And you walk straight for about fifteen minutes you will reach the farm lands. " She paused and felt another tear drop from her eye as the pain in her arm began to spread to her shoulder and the inside of her lips began to feel hotter than usual. "Hff, Don't stop, shoot at anything that you see moving if you must, speed is key. Remember that they do walk slowly but if they want you down, they will try to speed up. No noise, that's the last thing you should do, so no talking or singing like you like to do." She began to cry now, and kissed his cheek, " Don't ever, ever forget that I love you. I wish I would see you as a man, but you have grown up so much this past few days. I wish I would have seen you graduate and marry, and get older. Die of old age with a grandchild, but I love you so much. Live for me."

He hugged her and let her blood fall on his clothes as he took the gun with his other hand, and her small bag. "Mom, I love you too. I'm so sorry for calling you names before, and acting like an idiot. I'm so sorry," he said as he felt her tears, on his head, and he moved away.

She guided the hand with his gun and she nodded, letting her actions hint at what she wanted him to do, the fair end to her life. A short death one which would not cause the death of others. She saw him close his eyes and try to shoot, but he couldn't, He took the gun and gave it to her, and kissed her before he began to walk to the clearing, looking back at her and saying, "I love you too much." Before walking toward the aunt's home and then running as quick as he could. She looked at his disappearing figure in the sunlight and knew he would make it. Hoped for it.

She then took her gun, which Nathan had dropped and tried to kill herself but like him, she couldn't do it. She felt the heat entering her blood stream, and got up as fast as she could holding her gun on her right hand. Facing the forest she began to walk again toward the highway and fell flat on the ground when her legs couldn't sustain her any longer, she looked around her and noticed the thick bush, and realized she couldn't make out the clearing any longer. Good, she thought, this way her son had a chance. Maybe, a slim one, but one she hoped he had. She sighed and looked up at the tree tops. Began to remember her husband and her son, her sister and her identical smile to herself, and her brother. In fact, she could feel as though he was there, taunting her and pushing her to run as fast as she could through the forest, she could smell him already, and feel his breath on her flesh. His words in her ear "You deserve so much better than this farm." She saw him then, with her husband trying to come to her. Dead men from her past now there with her, as she smiled at nothing but figments of her imagination. Her son laughing and singing his odd songs to her, her sister talking about her classes.

"I love you all so much, I wish I would just run away," were her last words on the forest floor as she felt the pain hit each nerve and feel like glass cutting the insides of her veins. She looked up again knowing that the fever was as high as she could take it, and breathed in calmly as she felt the voices of the men including her son, and her sister filled her mind with love and ghosts. She could even hear their crisp laughter as she looked up again at the top of the trees, the sunlight breaking in. She smiled and thought, "What a lovely day such a beautiful sun" and Diana closed her eyes for the last time.


End file.
